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- Chair:
-
Bruce Baker
(Coventry University)
- Stream:
- Series E: Health, Housing, Migration and Refugees
- Location:
- GR 204
Short Abstract
to follow
Long Abstract
to follow
Accepted papers
Session 1Paper long abstract
Since the turn of the century, the numbers of irregular migrants from Africa arriving in southern Europe by boat, often in perilous circumstances has dominated headlines and exercised the minds of policy makers. Migrants without papers embark from countries along the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and from West Africa seeking landfall in southern European Union member states where they hope to benefit from the relative ease of movement within the Schengen area. Although a majority are from Maghreb countries, a significant minority make an equally arduous land journey to the countries of embarkation from sub-Saharan Africa, and from places beyond the African continent. Most irregular migrants are clients of illegal organisations and pay to be smuggled. There is a distinction between smuggling which implies a business transaction and trafficking which involves explicit exploitation, although smuggling results in high financial, physical and emotional costs and can readily transmute into trafficking. In response to the influx, individual countries and the European Union have put in place, often controversial, measures ranging from physical border protection to bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements covering immigration quotas. At the same time numerous non-governmental organisations have mobilised to support and/or to critique the humanitarian and legal provision for arrivals. The panel will examine the phenomenon from the perspective of the countries of origin, transit and destination and reflect the experience and concerns of the migrants and those tasked with addressing irregular migration in terms of law enforcement and humanitarian response.
Paper long abstract
My thesis examines the dynamics of West African migration to Europe, using qualitative data collected in Spain, Senegal and the Mauritanian ‘holding zone’ (research to be continued Feb-August 2008). Primary areas of interest include the formulation of decisions to migrate; interactions between migrants and the state; and the impact of European border management on West African governments and on migrants. My current focus within the thesis concerns the interest of international financial institutions, governments and NGOs in migrants’ remittances. There is a strong policy trend, from the World Bank and from European governments, towards their formalisation. To examine to the extent to which macroeconomic theories relating to the productive use of remittances can be applied to West Africa, I will begin with a historical analysis of migration and remittances in the region. The case study of Senegal and Mauritania illustrates the multifarious nature of West African migration, the merging of labour and refugee movements, and the dynamism of migrant networks and communities. I argue that in the West African case – contrary to the structuralist arguments which dominate Marxist theories of migration – historical and current patterns of movement and transnational livelihoods illustrate the agency of migrants. I conclude that attempts to systematise and formalise remittances in analysis and policy formation is limited by this agency, and by the failure of colonialism or capitalist transformation in ordering or controlling financial flows in the region.
Paper long abstract
Recent statistics indicates that there has been a phenomenal rise in the world’s migrant population, with a disproportionate exodus of people from the developing to developed nations. Africa, a continent in dire need of skilled human resources, in particular, has experienced a massive migration of its skilled work force to the developed nations and a corresponding reluctance of those abroad to return to the continent. This paper seeks to interrogate three conventional wisdoms associated with the skewed patterns of migration. The first is that endemic crises, a repressive political environment and worsening socio-economic conditions that have become the defining features of the continent are to be held responsible for this pattern of migration. The second is that contemporary migration of Africans to the developed world, unlike the first wave of migration during the slave trade, is essentially voluntary. The third is that migration is mutually beneficial to the countries involved. I argue that such assumptions conceal, more than they reveal. By interpreting contemporary migration as “voluntary”, we are not helped to understand how impossibly hard it is to live in Africa. It also does not help us to understand why some Africans adopt desperate strategies in their bid to “escape” from the continent. More fundamentally, by imputing migration of Africans to essentially, internally predisposing factors, we fall into the trap of taking manifestations for explanations. Thus, our understanding of how conflicts, repressive political environment and chronic underdevelopment became permanent features of Africa cannot be enhanced. This paper contests these notions, arguing instead that whereas contemporary Africans are not forced out of the continent through slave ships by slave merchants, they are nonetheless forced out of Africa by the prevailing life-threatening socio-economic conditions which are rooted in an unfavourable international political economy.